Lhong Fai (2017)

Powerful acting

I was blown away by Baifern's acting here. She really does carry the lead role with a lot of charisma. The surrounding characters were mostly shades of gray themselves except for the protagonist's friends. Most of them were fairly selfish and vindictive themselves and in a way it portrays that one's birth does determine one's outcomes a fair bit. However, it shows that human dignity is possible no matter what one's social class is. I think this is a show you watch and then think about for a long time. I didn't expect Thai TV shows to be so intense. Kudos for the writer to showcase the issue of traficking which affects 4 million people every year in the world. This isn't just drama, it's reality. The story was a bit moralizing and in a way I was slightly disappointed by the way it ended. There was redemption where the protagonist finds courage and remorse though. Still, one expects TV shows that portray dichotomies of choices to have clear outcomes. It's rated G in Thailand, maybe because of the moralizing but it's still pretty violent at times. This would have been an 13\18+ show in India or else for sure. Overall, definitely worth a watch.

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Karnkaew (the protagonist) could’ve focused on her studies and taken advantage of her amazing skills such as public speaking, language ability and people skills, wait until she finish school and land a nice job to steadily lift herself out of poverty, instead she decided to make quick money by abusing her beauty in being a high class escort providing sexual services while pretending to be a social elite with expensive tastes, all in the hopes of tricking a wealthy man marrying into wealth. But the truth will out, her lifestyle isn’t sustainable, once her facade was stripped away, everything gone into shambles.

Baifern’s performance blew me away, although the story is depressing and the protagonist is nothing but a manipulative woman with huge insecurities about being poor, one can’t help but sympathize with her in her desperation despite her problematic approach to life by cheating her way to the top, even though it would never work out for her, because she’s trying so hard and had given her all. All in all it’s quite a moral tale that really made a hard impact considering Karnkaew’s tragic ending.

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